Article withdrawn. AT&T explained to me afterwards their comments did not extend to video, which they want to carve out as "managed services." Video is most of the issue, so my original story is seriously off-base.

The war over FCC Net Neutrality rules is ready to resolve, key players tell me. AT&T SVP Jim Cicconi emails me "we'd not unreasonably discriminate (i.e. prioritize) if it caused material harm to consumers or had an anti-competitive impact." I believe honoring that promise would prohibit nearly all the practices consumer advocates fear. As a practical matter, AT&T's crucial application - U-Verse TV - requires that essentially every bit gets through quickly and without degradation. Any network built to that standard is effectively neutral in 2009. It would clearly be anti-competitive if other video programming didn't get through with similar minimal latency and minimal packet loss. AT&T is also offering video on wireless, setting a standard there as well, perhaps at a lower throughput.

I can't think of any application except high-definition video conferencing and perhaps long distance brain surgery that requires better Internet performance than AT&T is promising the FCC in these comments. Even standard-def video conferencing wouldn't be affected, while HD would probably be fine as well. Honestly living up to the standard of not prioritizing if it's anti-competitive is essentially accepting the fifth principle of NN. It's a polite way for AT&T to claim "we won our principle" and move on to other issues.

There's nobody significant on the Net Neutrality side who is opposed to truly reasonable network management, so any legitimate fears of the anti-NN group can be easily accommodated. Which would be good for everyone, according to some remarkable comments by AT&T's own CTO.

One consumer advocate doubts whether AT&T is serious about not discriminating and believes several of their specific requests contradict that promise.I hope the D.C. reporters go beyond the political posturing and bring the remaining real issues to the forefront. Amy Schatz of WSJ in D.C. and Cecilia Kang of the Washington Post have been writing this story and I hope will jump in and ensure an honest result. I'm a tech reporter in New York, not a political reporter in Washington so can only play a limited role.

Can the war be over? A person who can make it so writes me, "I honestly want to get this all to a good place, Dave."